US stocks rise for the first time in four daysStocks rose for the first time in four days Tuesday as investors judged that the recent sell-off had presented them with a buying opportunity. The gains were led by technology companies. KEEPING SCORE: The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose five points, or 0.3 percent, to 1,850 as of 12:05 p.m. Eastern time. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 35 points, or 0.2 percent, to 16,281. The Nasdaq composite gained 28 points, or 0.7 percent, to 4,108...

Victim in famous photo marks year since marathon CARLISLE, Mass. (AP) — The year since Jeff Bauman was pushed in a wheelchair from the Boston Marathon, his legs ravaged and his face ashen, has been marked by pain and difficulty but also by triumphs: He's learned to walk on new prosthetic legs, he's gotten engaged and he's an expectant father. Bauman became one of the most recognizable and powerful symbols of Boston's resilience after the April 15 attacks — immortalized in an Associated Press...

Forecasters warn of bad weather Thursday NORMAN, Okla. (AP) — Forecasters say residents of the Mississippi, Ohio and Tennessee valleys should be on alert for severe weather and be prepared to take shelter if it approaches. The Storm Prediction Center says a severe weather outbreak is possible Thursday afternoon and evening in an area from Arkansas to Indiana. Storms could also be severe from Texas to Ohio. Moist air could reach into the middle of the country as a low-pressure system ...

Gunman kills 3, wounds 16 at Fort Hood Army base FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) — A soldier opened fire Wednesday on fellow service members at the Fort Hood military base, killing three people and wounding 16 before committing suicide at the same post where more than a dozen people were slain in a 2009 attack, authorities said. The shooter, who served in Iraq in 2011, had been undergoing an assessment to determine whether he had post-traumatic stress disorder, according to Lt. Gen. Mark A. Milley, th...

$425 million Powerball winner wants privacyThe winner of one of the largest Powerball jackpots in history has finally come forward — but he still hasn't quite revealed his identity. B. Raymond Buxton, a Northern California man, waited more than a month to accept his prize on Tuesday at the California Lottery headquarters in Sacramento. In a photo taken after he claimed the money on Tuesday, Buxton was covering his face with an oversize check for $425 million. Perhaps the only clue to h...

Louisiana senator: 'Chicken boxing' is not cockfighting BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A Louisiana senator is opposing a bill that would close loopholes in a state cockfighting ban, saying it threatens the legitimate, less bloody sport of "chicken boxing." The criticism from Republican Sen. Elbert Guillory, of Opelousas, seemed to confuse senate judiciary committee members and stunned New Orleans Sen. J.P. Morrell, a Democrat from New Orleans who proposed the loophole-closing bill. Chicken boxing? Guillor...

Tree trimmer hospitalized with chain saw in neck PITTSBURGH (AP) — A tree trimmer is recovering after he was rushed to a Pittsburgh hospital with a chain saw blade embedded in his neck. James Valentine was in a tree in Ross Township on Monday afternoon when he was struck in the neck by the saw. Another worker helped him down, and his co-workers left the saw in place to try to limit the bleeding. Valentine had emergency surgery at Allegheny General Hospital. Doctors say the saw missed major a...

Police: Man spent days with corpses in Nevada home NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. (AP) — A 30-year-old man accused of killing his mother and sister in their North Las Vegas home spent a couple of days dismembering one of the bodies and trying to clean up the bloody scene, a police official said Tuesday. Darius Davon Sorrells lived for at least several days with the two corpses at the two-story stucco home before he was arrested early Saturday after a chance run-in with police and a brief high-speed tra...

Washington mudslide death toll climbs to 28 ARLINGTON, Wash. (AP) — The official death toll from Washington state's mudslide has increased to 28, and the Snohomish County medical examiner's office says 22 of those victims have been identified. That's up from 27 dead with 19 identified Tuesday morning. The latest names added to the victims list are 65-year-old Thom E. Satterlee, 60-year-old Lon E. Slauson and 23-year-old Adam Farnes. Like the rest, they died of blunt force injuries suffe...

PG&E criminally charged in fatal pipeline blast SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Pacific Gas and Electric Co. was charged on Tuesday with federal felony counts involving safety violations linked to a deadly 2010 natural gas pipeline explosion in the San Francisco Bay Area. The indictment charges the utility with 12 felony violations of federal pipeline safety laws, which could carry a total possible fine of $6 million, or more if the court decides it somehow benefited financially from the disaster. Fed...

Savings and loan figure Charles Keating dies at 90 PHOENIX (AP) — The financier who was disgraced for his role in the costliest savings and loan failure of the 1980s has died. Charles H. Keating Jr. was 90. A person with direct knowledge of the death confirmed that Keating died but didn't provide further details. The person wasn't authorized to release the information and spoke on condition of anonymity. The collapse of the thrift that Keating's home construction company bought cost taxpayers ...

Oklahoma woman charged in deaths of 2 women, girl OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — An Oklahoma woman was charged Friday in the 1992 deaths of her grandson's mother, another woman and a 6-year-old girl whose bodies were found buried last year in a hole that had been dug for a septic tank. Beverly Noe was ordered held without bond after being charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of 23-year-old Wendy Camp, Camp's 6-year-old daughter Cynthia Britto and Camp's 22-year-old sister-in-l...

Crews preparing to enter underground nuke dump CARLSBAD, N.M. (AP) — The Department of Energy said Thursday it expects to get underground next week to begin investigating the cause and extent of a mysterious radiation leak from the government's nuclear waste dump in southeastern New Mexico. Officials said the inspections of the shafts that workers will use to access the half-mile-deep repository are complete and they are preparing to send an initial crew of eight into the mine early next w...

Customer refunds proposed in nuke-plant deal LOS ANGELES (AP) — Utility customers would see an estimated $1.4 billion in savings, including $600 million in refunds, in a proposed settlement over costs tied to the shuttered San Onofre nuclear power plant in Southern California, officials said Thursday. If approved by state utility regulators, the agreement could end a long-running dispute over who gets the bill for the defunct seaside plant, which was closed permanently in June after a bi...

Weary mudslide rescuers battle rain, exhaustion DARRINGTON, Wash. (AP) — Weary rescuers in hip waders pressed through rain and their own exhaustion Thursday, searching for more bodies and perhaps a miracle atop the pile of filth and debris that laid waste to a Washington town and killed at least 25 people. Rescue and cadaver dogs occasionally led crews to a wrecked car or the ruins of a house containing a body. Teams then began removing the corpse, ignoring the muck that clogged their tools...

US autism estimate rises to 1 in 68 children NEW YORK (AP) — The government's estimate of autism has moved up again to 1 in 68 U.S. children, a 30 percent increase in two years. But health officials say the new number may not mean autism is more common. Much of the increase is believed to be from a cultural and medical shift, with doctors diagnosing autism more frequently, especially in children with milder problems. "We can't dismiss the numbers. But we can't interpret it to mean more p...

Wal-Mart sues Visa over card fees NEW YORK (AP) — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is suing Visa Inc. over fees that it charges the world's largest retailer when customers use a credit or debit card. Wal-Mart said Visa conspired with banks to illegally fix and inflate fees that retailers pay on card transactions, and that the fees cost U.S. retailers and shoppers more than $350 billion between 2004 and November 2012. Wal-Mart's complaint was filed Tuesday with the U.S. District Court for ...

Boston mourns 2 firefighters killed in blazeOne was a fitness enthusiast who helped the wounded after the Boston Marathon bombings and planned to run the race himself this year. The other was a father of three young children who had firefighting in his blood. The smoke from a wind-whipped fire had dissipated Thursday, but a palpable sadness hung over the city as tributes poured in for Michael Kennedy and Edward Walsh, the two firefighters who died after becoming trapped in a basement in...

Harrah's casino announces it will close in Tunica JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The long decline of what was once the nation's third-largest casino market was underlined Wednesday when the largest casino in Mississippi's Tunica County announced it would close. Caesars Entertainment will shutter its Harrah's casino in Tunica on June 2, laying off as many as 1,300 workers. Las Vegas-based Caesars has two other casinos in Tunica that will remain open - Horseshoe Tunica and Tunica Roadhouse Hotel and Cas...

Political instability, weather spur wheat pricesPolitical instability in Ukraine —coupled with potential freeze damage to winter wheat in the United States and a deepening drought in some major wheat producing countries — are conspiring to significantly drive up wheat prices, economists say. U.S. Wheat Associates, the industry's trade group, said in a recent report that concern over the political situation in Ukraine — which supplies 6 percent of the world's wheat export market — was one of...